


Normal Isn't a Virtue

by gluupor



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Practical Magic Fusion, F/M, Gen, Haunting, Implied/Reference Childhood Sexual Assault, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Murder, Possession, Stalking, Twinyard Week 2019, Wholesome Twinyards, Witch Curses, Witches, minor gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-21 09:15:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21297077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gluupor/pseuds/gluupor
Summary: Andrew's twelve when he learns three things that will change the course of his life forever:He is a witchHe has a twinHis family is cursed to cause the death of the person they fall in love withThe first two things are great but the last is a burden he doesn't want to deal with. He takes steps to protect himself, casting a spell that ensure he'll only fall in love with a man who doesn't exist. After that he relaxes, safe in the knowledge that his True Love is a pipedream who he'll never meet.Of course, magic has a way of messing with the best laid plans.
Relationships: Aaron Minyard & Andrew Minyard, Katelyn/Aaron Minyard, Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 175
Kudos: 1015
Collections: Twinyards Appreciation Week 2019





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Twinyards Appreciation Week! I'm going to post a chapter a day. Some of them incorporate the prompts better than others ;)
> 
> Ok, yes, this is an AU of a 1998 Sandra Bullock/Nicole Kidman movie. There is absolutely no need for you to be familiar with it to understand this fic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's prompt is: misunderstandings.
> 
> This chapter contains references to childhood sexual abuse, minor character self-inflicted injury, and blood

#####  _2005_

Andrew was twelve when he learned he was cursed.

He’d suspected that was the case before, of course. One couldn’t be an unwanted child in the foster system, shuffled between homes where they paid him no attention and homes where he was paid too much attention without wondering why. He assumed he’d been born under an unlucky star of some sort.

In the spring following his twelfth birthday, he thought things might be turning around for him. He was moved into a new home, that of Cass and Richard Spear, who wanted to be real parents to him. They fed him well and bought him clothes and shoes without complaint and showed interest in his life. Everything was perfect until their college-aged son Drake came home for the summer holidays.

As long as Andrew could remember, he’d been able to size people up with a single glance. He had always been able to tell who was indifferent to him and who meant him harm. Drake’s intentions coated him like a thick coat of oil, making bile rise up in the back of Andrew’s throat. His eyes were covetous and the way he clasped Andrew’s shoulder was proprietary. Every time he’d encountered similar intentions previously, Andrew had done everything he could to switch foster homes, but this time he didn’t want to give up Cass. Surely he could survive a single summer of Drake’s unwanted attention, couldn’t he?

He agonized back and forth over what he should do as Drake circled closer. He knew he was running out of time, but he also knew that there was no guarantee that the next place he lived would be any better. His past experiences told him it could very well be worse.

The choice was taken out of his hands on a rainy day in early June. He’d spent the day out of the house and away from Drake; he’d been in his favourite spot in the public library, curled up out of the way with a trusted book. When he got home to wash up for dinner he found his social worker, Jenny, along with two strange women.

The women looked nothing alike—one short and squat and pale, the other tall and lanky and brown—but there was something in the twinkle in their eyes or the quirk of their lips that indicated they belonged together. Andrew regarded them up in his usual frank manner and found nothing to worry him. Quite the opposite, in fact. He liked the look of them.

“Andrew,” said Jenny, her tone and manner exhausted. She was a solid, overworked woman who had good intentions but not enough resources. Andrew knew she tried her best, but her best had never been good enough to keep him safe. “These women are Betsy Dobson and Abigail Winfield. They are your aunts.”

Whatever Andrew had been expecting, it hadn’t been that. He’d passed his entire life up until this point knowing he didn’t have a family.

“It’s very surprising, I know,” said the shorter woman, Betsy, in a conciliatory manner when Andrew didn’t react to the news. “We only found out about it recently ourselves. Will you sit with us so we can tell you about it?”

Andrew sat obediently and mechanically took the cookie and cocoa offered by Betsy from a tupperware and thermos she’d brought with her. The food and drink warmed and relaxed him and he could feel his shock receding as Betsy spoke in a calm, measured tone. She explained that she and Abigail were cousins; their mothers were sisters. Their mothers also had a brother, who had a son named Alistair, who had recently passed away unexpectedly. In going through his belongings, Betsy and Abby had found proof that Alistair was a father. They’d followed the evidence until they found Andrew. A DNA test had been done by CPS without his knowledge (Cass explained worriedly that she didn’t want to get his hopes up in case the women weren’t his actual aunts) that backed up their claim. He was actually Andrew Minyard and Betsy and Abigail wanted him to come live with them.

Andrew was completely overwhelmed by all the information and didn’t know what to say.

“It is your decision,” said Abigail gently.

“But you need two more pieces of information before you make it,” added Betsy. “The first one is that you aren’t Alistair’s only son. We have evidence that you are in fact a twin and we’ve also been looking for your brother.”

Andrew’s eyes widened at that. He’d always wanted a brother, someone who would automatically be on his side. He’d been in a few homes that also housed siblings and he’d been jealous of the unbreakable bond they seemed to share.

“The second thing is,” started Betsy, leaning forward and reaching for him. She stopped before touching him. “May I touch you?” she asked. His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Just your hand. You can say no.”

Andrew didn’t like being touched but the novelty of being asked had him nodding in agreement. Betsy took his hand and held it securely.

“If you come and live with us,” she said, her warm brown eyes boring into his, “we will keep you safe. We will not hurt you and we promise to never touch you without your permission.” Her words were heavy, like her promise had actual weight. Andrew felt them settle next to his heart.

He nodded once. “I want to go with you,” he said, surety flooding his veins.

Things moved quickly after that; the transfer of his guardianship had already been dealt with and was only waiting for his approval. Betsy and Abigail helped him pack up his belongings, Cass gave him a tearful hug, and Drake watched everything unfold with a stormy expression, like a toddler who had had his favourite toy stolen out from under him.

Before he knew it, he was in the back seat of Betsy and Abigail’s boxy station wagon, waving goodbye to Cass. The trip back to the small town where Betsy and Abigail lived would take several hours, they explained. Andrew felt himself drifting off almost immediately, the emotional toll of the day catching up to him.

He was mostly asleep when Betsy spoke. “We were just in time,” she muttered to Abigail. Andrew wasn’t sure if she thought he was asleep. “We should get rid of that evil boy.”

“We’re not killing him,” said Abigail placidly.

“The world would be a better place,” argued Betsy. “We could simply… speed along his demise.”

“You know better than to mess with the natural order of things. He’ll die eventually.”

“Not soon enough,” said Betsy, but subsided in her arguments.

Andrew wondered who they were talking about, but even his curiosity couldn’t keep him awake as the car ate up the miles.

* * *

Abigail and Betsy lived in an old, rambling house called Reddin Cottage on a secluded plot of land. It was outside of Palmetto, a tiny town on the South Carolinian coast. Their property was on a cliff overlooking the ocean and ringed with wild forest. The road that led to it was winding and made of gravel. Andrew plastered his face against the window, his eyes huge. He’d always lived in the city, in cramped apartments or ramshackle houses in sketchy neighbourhoods. He wasn’t used to the wilderness.

Abigail and Betsy (who asked him to call them Aunt Abby and Aunt Bee) let him have the run of the place, not interfering with his exploring. He poked through the greenhouse to look at all the weird plants and rambled through the trees, staring at moss and mushrooms and other strange wildlife. He kept his distance from the bee hives in the back pasture and tried to coax the cats he saw roaming the property into being his friend.

But even though there was lots to look at and explore outdoors, it had nothing on the strangeness of his new home. His aunts weren’t overly strict about things like bedtimes or putting his shoes away. They told him he was free to go wherever he wanted and gave him blanket permission to touch things and look around. The living room was cozy, stuffed full of all sorts of interesting things that Aunt Abby told him were collected by his ancestors. The kitchen was even more interesting, full of spices and herbs that he’d never heard of or knew existed.

After two days of explorations, Aunt Bee sat him down and told him they needed to have a talk; there were things he needed to know. Andrew froze, wondering if this was when the shoe dropped. He’s suspected that things were too good to be true.

Aunt Bee smiled comfortingly and explained that the first, most important thing he had to know was that Aunt Bee and Aunt Abby were witches. All children born into the Minyard line were natural witches, including Andrew.

Andrew scoffed. “Magic isn’t real,” he said.

“Isn’t it?” asked Aunt Bee, unconcerned with his derision.

Andrew crossed his arms. “Prove it.”

Aunt Bee raised an eyebrow and then snapped her fingers. Every single candle in the room blazed to light, bathing the room in a soft, flickering glow.

“That… that was a trick, or something,” said Andrew, disconcerted.

“Of course it was,” agreed Aunt Bee. “A magic trick.”

“Can you make yourself rich?” asked Andrew. He didn’t understand why his aunts would have such a terrible car if they could do magic.

“No,” said Aunt Abby. “That’s big magic. Big magic has a steep cost because you need to impose your will over the universe. It usually backfires with disastrous results.”

“We do small magic,” added Aunt Bee. “Helpful, practical magic that makes our day to day lives easier.”

“But it’s a secret,” cautioned Aunt Abby. “Minyard witches have been living at Reddin Cottage for more than two hundred years. The people of Palmetto suspect what we are but they leave us be, although we still get blamed for everything that goes wrong. When you go to school, the other children will be afraid of you.”

“Can you teach me magic?” asked Andrew, unconcerned with Aunt Abby’s words, still staring at the candles.

“Of course,” said Aunt Bee and his lessons begun.

They were very frustrating at first. He didn’t seem to be making any progress and his aunts had him doing boring and useless things, like learning all the names of the plants in the greenhouse and how to grow them properly. He spent his evenings flipping through the large family grimoire, the yellowed pages crackling between his fingers as he tried to soak in all the knowledge. His aunts made him do nonsensical things, such as throw spilled salt over his left shoulder, grow rosemary by the garden gate, and plant lavender for luck.

In the fall, he had to attend the town school. His aunts were right to warn him; none of the other children seemed happy to have “one of those Minyards” around. To his amazement, he didn’t have to resort to fighting as he’d always had to do at new schools in the past. Here, he was able to simply point and say something vaguely threatening and his tormentors would scuttle off in a panic, worried he would somehow curse them.

The only kid who didn’t give him a wide berth was Kevin. Kevin also didn’t have any friends, due to his bossy and overbearing personality. On his second day at school, Andrew had chased off some kids who were picking on him (mostly because he enjoyed seeing their fearful reactions when he pointed at them and said, “Oogity boogity”) and had inadvertently picked him up as a shadow. He wasn’t afraid of Andrew, since (he informed him pedantically) magic wasn’t real and all those rumours about Andrew’s family were patently ridiculous.

Andrew returned home eager to swap his mundane lessons for the more interesting magical ones from his aunts.

“What’s the family curse?” he asked, one day in late September. One of the mouthier girls had taunted him at recess, claiming he’d always be alone because of the Minyard curse.

Aunt Bee and and Aunt Abby shared a glance, which they did whenever they weren’t sure they wanted Andrew to know something. Sometimes they told him that they’d explain when he was older, but more often than not they answered his question. He hadn’t yet caught them in a lie.

“Before the Minyards lived here, this cottage was owned by a family of witches called the Reddins,” said Aunt Bee, taking a seat beside him. “The last of the Reddins was a beautiful girl named Amelia, who was rumoured to have hair like spun gold. There was another family of witches in town, the Prousts. They were important people, involved in politics and otherwise telling people what to do. The son of Mayor Proust fell in love with Amelia and demanded her hand in marriage, but she did not love him in return. Instead, she loved the blacksmith, a man named Abraham Minyard who didn’t have a drop of magic in his blood. When Amelia married Abraham, the son of the mayor threw a tantrum. He’d never been denied anything he wanted, and in his pique he performed big magic, cursing Amelia to lose the man she loved. It was believed that Proust’s spell backfired, as the mansion his family lived in burned to the ground and everyone inside was killed.”

“But it didn’t backfire?” asked Andrew, caught up in the story.

“It did not. Amelia and Abraham lived happily for five years, until one night Amelia heard the call of the deathwatch beetle and realized the curse had worked. It had just been delayed long enough for her to know true happiness. Within twenty four hours, Abraham was dead and Amelia was left alone to raise their three young sons. All of her sons had inherited her powers, but what they didn’t know was that they inherited her curse as well. For two hundred years now, every person who is loved by a Minyard dies shortly thereafter.” She glanced at the mantlepiece, where there was a framed picture of a younger Aunt Bee with her arms around a pretty, freckled woman.

“You, too?” asked Andrew, following her gaze.

Aunt Bee nodded sadly. “I used to scoff at my mother’s stories, convinced that she was taken in by silly superstition. But three years after I fell in love I heard the deathwatch beetle, and Jane died the next day.”

The story sent a chill through Andrew and caught his interest. He spent several days thinking about poor, doomed Abraham before he realized something worrisome.

“How long until I die?” he asked Aunt Abby. He was sitting at the big, sturdy oak table that took up most of the kitchen; according to Aunt Bee it had stood there for as long as the house had. He swung his feet as he peeled potatoes for dinner.

“Not for a long time yet,” said Aunt Abby distractedly from where she was stirring a pot.

“No, I mean, how long until you or Aunt Bee kill me?” asked Andrew.

Aunt Abby gasped, turning quickly. “Andrew, Bee and I will _never_ hurt you,” she said sharply. “Who put that idea in your head?”

“I know you won’t mean to,” said Andrew consolingly. “But the curse will get me, won’t it? You both tell me you love me.” It had shaken him thoroughly the first time Aunt Bee had kissed his forehead and told him she loved him. No one had ever told him that before. He kept the memory tucked away close to his heart until he realized it wasn’t something to ration. His aunts were free with their love—which seemed a little reckless, given the family curse.

Aunt Abby put her hand to her chest in relief and glanced briefly at the ceiling. “You gave me a fright, you silly boy,” she chided gently. “You misunderstood. The curse can’t kill you; you’re a Minyard, you’re immune. Besides, it only works with romantic love.”

“Ugh,” said Andrew, with all the conviction of a twelve year old who found kissing icky. “Why?”

“Because Proust was a self-important bully who wanted to force someone to fall in love with him. Do you really think he understood the importance of platonic love?”

Andrew looked up at her. “Have you lost someone to the curse, Aunt Abby?”

Aunt Abby sighed, her eyes turning sad. “No, but still yes. There is a man… I could love him if I let myself. But I’ve never let myself. So he still lives, but he’s not mine.”

* * *

By the beginning of October, Andrew felt as if he’d always lived with his aunts. He could obviously still remember his time before them, but it felt far away, like a dream. Some nights he woke in a cold sweat and had to get up to check the lock on his door, but in general he mostly forgot his earlier misery.

A week before the Hunter’s Moon, Aunt Bee explained that she and Aunt Abby always left town for a gathering of witches at this time of year. She was worried about where he would stay while they were gone, asking for his opinion. He suggested that he stay with Kevin; he’d met Kevin’s father a few times and knew that even though the man was gruff and prickly that he was ultimately good hearted and wished Andrew no harm. Aunt Bee and Aunt Abby shared another of their looks but ultimately agreed.

Andrew didn’t understand what the problem was until Aunt Abby dropped him off with Mr. Wymack and the two of them shared a charged glance. Mr. Wymack sighed longingly after Aunt Abby took her leave, and then Andrew understood that he was the man who she avoided because of the curse.

It rubbed Andrew the wrong way. All his life, he’d never been allowed to keep anything, to have anything of his own. And now that he was finally free from that, some stupid curse was one day going to take someone away from him. He had no interest in falling in love, but he had even less interest in losing anyone. He vowed to find a loophole to protect himself from the curse.

His vow was temporarily forgotten when his aunts returned, because they did not return alone. In their wake, they brought with them Andrew’s rumoured twin. His name was Aaron and he was thinner than Andrew, with deep circles under his eyes and a wary way of holding himself that Andrew recognized from the mirror. Aunt Bee explained that they heard news of him when they were away for the moon and immediately travelled to meet him. His mother had died recently, and Aaron had opted to come live with Andrew and their aunts in lieu of moving in with his other family, an uncle whom he’d never met.

Things were strained between them at first, Aaron angry about the path his life had taken. But Aunt Abby and Aunt Bee were both endlessly patient and taught Andrew how to be patient, too. He knew he had to wait for Aaron to be ready.

In the meantime, he threw himself into researching how he could protect himself from the family curse. It took him months, past his and Aaron’s thirteenth birthday, but he finally came up with a plan.

One night in late December, he snuck out of bed and out to the greenhouse.

“What are you doing?” hissed an accusatory voice just as he pushed open the door.

He jumped in fright and then wheeled on Aaron. “Don’t sneak up on me,” he said harshly, annoyed about being startled.

“You’re not supposed to be out of bed,” replied Aaron fretfully. “You’re going to get a beating.”

“No, I’m not,” Andrew told him. “They would never hit me.” He turned and went into the greenhouse, not waiting to see if Aaron would follow him but still listening for his footsteps.

“What are you doing?” repeated Aaron, blowing on his hands to keep them warm, although the greenhouse was warm and humid.

“A spell,” said Andrew. “A true love spell called _amas veritas_.”

“Why would you want a true love? She’s just going to die,” said Aaron, well versed in the family curse by now.

“I looked for ways to make sure the curse won’t affect me,” Andrew told him. “There’s no way to make sure you never fall in love and you can’t magic fake love. But you _can_ call your true love to you. Watch.”

He pulled out a mortar and pestle that Aunt Bee used to grind herbs, laying the pestle aside. Plucking petals off of a white rose bush, he began the spell. “My true love will have twenty-two names and will speak six languages and have eyes that are sometimes blue and sometimes brown,” he said, placing a petal in the mortar for each trait he listed. “He will be able to run a mile in under ten minutes and be able to calculate thirty three times twenty seven in his head and will not be more than this much taller than me.”

He broke off a piece of rose stem that was a couple inches long and added it to the bowl. As he did, he glanced at Aaron under his eyelashes to gauge his reaction to the pronoun he’d used—he knew that his attraction lay toward boys, but he hadn’t told anyone yet—but Aaron didn’t react, simply watching the petals fall into the ceramic bowl. “He will carry a shield as protection and have an iron heart and will always have my back.”

Andrew had thought long and hard about what traits he’d list in the spell. They had to be improbable (especially when combined), but not impossible. He also added in things he actually wanted in a partner. “He won’t be scared of me and he won’t regard me with nothing but lust and he’ll know he’s found me because he will feel safe.”

He stopped, setting the mortar on the greenhouse bench. “I call him to my side, where he belongs.”

He sprinkled a mixture of powders he’d prepared earlier over the petals and then used the spell that Aunt Abby had taught him two weeks previously to light them on fire. He took the ashes and spread them in the soil beneath the creeping ivy. He felt something like a band of iron snap around his chest as the spell settled into place, and he knew he had been successful. Magic was mostly intention and will and his spell was now woven into the fabric of the universe.

“That person doesn’t exist,” complained Aaron once he was done.

“That’s the point,” explained Andrew. “He’s a pipe dream. So no one will ever be called by the spell and I’ll never fall in love and I’ll never be left alone.”

Aaron looked contemplative.

“You could do the same spell?” suggested Andrew.

Aaron took a step back, shaking his head. “Nah,” he said, aiming for a light tone. “My mom was always going on dates. She said being an adult is lonely. I don’t want to set anything in stone.”

Andrew nodded, before he was struck by an idea. He looked around, gaze landing on an old, rusty set of pruning shears. He picked them up and slashed across his palm.

“Andrew!” gasped Aaron. “You’re going to get tetanus.”

Andrew handed him the shears. “Go on,” he said.

Aaron grimaced, but copied Andrew and cut open his palm.

Andrew had learned quite a bit about making unbreakable promises from Aunt Bee. He knew clasping hands and eye contact were important. Blood was most important of all, reserved for the promises that meant the most.

“My blood,” Andrew said, reaching out with his bleeding hand. “Your blood,” he continued, as Aaron did the same. “Our blood,” he finished, clasping their hands together, their blood mingling.

He could feel magic swirling around them, like little electric shocks all over his skin, poised to make his promise a reality. “We will never be alone,” he vowed, “because we will always have each other.”


	2. Twelve Years Later

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's prompt: Andrew and Aaron

#####  _Hunter’s Moon, November 3, 2017_

Andrew woke up the day before his twenty-fifth birthday and immediately accidentally broke his small shaving mirror as he stumbled into the washroom to relieve himself. He swore eloquently as he then managed to cut his thumb on the broken pieces of glass while cleaning up the mess. Washing out his cut in the sink, he watched as the blood dripped from his finger into the swirling water, briefly forming a shape that looked like a rider on a horse. Andrew sighed. It was evidently going to be one of those days.

He ignored his tea leaves, the dregs settling into a coffin shape, and went downstairs to open up his store. He owned a tiny shop that fronted on Palmetto’s main street, wedged between a glass blower’s and a yoga studio and lived in the apartment above it (mostly because he felt he was too old to still live with his aunts, and he liked not having to explain where he was going when he headed out of town for his infrequent hookups). The sign above his store was faded and peeling (for the aesthetic; it had been faded and peeling when it was new) and read _Minyard’s Magic_ which was all anyone in town needed to know. Tourists came through in busy season, cooing at how quaint it was, and the locals occasionally visited warily. They may be afraid of him and his family, but everyone in town knew his products worked.

He sold a variety of different things; his own interest lay in the cultivation of plants and products made from them. Kevin worked with him—even after all these years, he remained Andrew’s faithful shadow who still did not believe in magic in the slightest—making candles and soap and other bath products. He’d branched out into bath bombs this year which had proven unexpectedly popular. He used Andrew’s plants to make his wares—lavender and rosehips and rosemary—which had all been grown with a magic touch.

They also sold healing poultices and other herbal remedies, and Andrew provided all the ingredients for the herbal teas made by the coffee shop across the street. They did well enough and Andrew was proud of his modest success.

Kevin arrived exactly on time as he did every morning, shaking out his umbrella. October had been unseasonably warm and dry, but November was already looking grim. It had been cool and drizzly for three days, turning the crunchy orange and yellow leaves littering the streets into brown sludge. Kevin’s umbrella accidentally snapped open as he took a couple steps inside, knocking a salt lamp off a shelf and shattering it.

Andrew made sure to toss a pinch of salt over his left shoulder before he swept it up. “Got it,” he told the universe at large. “Bad luck and death omens. You don’t have to keep rubbing it in my face.” He smudged the shop with sage anyway, ignoring Kevin’s eye-rolling disdain. Aaron was due home tomorrow; Andrew wasn’t going to take any chances with bad energy.

He spent the morning caring for the plants in the shop—they were much less happy here than in the greenhouse at Reddin Cottage—chatting to them softly. Aunt Bee had taught him many ways to enhance the health of the plants he grew, but he believed that talking to them had the most effect (after proper soil and adequate water, of course). He found aphids on some of his roses and tsked in concern, wondering if they were an actual problem or simply another irritating omen.

A throat clearing delicately behind him had him looking up from his plants, straight into the frowning face of Danielle Wilds. They’d known each other since they were children—Dan had been a couple years ahead of him at school—and she was one of the few people who had never been afraid of him. Or, at least, she’d never shown her fear, which gained her Andrew’s respect, if not his admiration. Now she was the town busybody; she was the mayor and spent all her time harassing others into being as involved in town matters as she was. Andrew was not looking forward to whatever she had to say.

“Andrew,” she said stiffly, “this year, we’ve decided to put up twinkle lights all along the shop fronts on the main drag to look festive for the holidays.”

“I’m a pagan,” he replied, which wasn’t precisely true but was the best defense he could come up with. “I don’t celebrate Christmas.”

“Non-denominational white twinkle lights, which will look pretty throughout the winter,” countered Dan.

“You can’t make me risk my neck putting up your lights.”

“I simply need your permission. Matt’s going to put them up.”

Andrew considered. Having Dan on his side was actually useful—he often had trouble with bored town youths trashing the front of his shop as a prank and Dan had worked with the sheriff to increase patrols to keep them away. Additionally, her husband Matt was the only competent handyman in town who was willing to do work for Andrew; he had no desire to alienate either of them.

“Fine,” he said. “As long as I don’t have to have anything to do with them.”

“Your shop will look like a black hole when everyone has them but you—” Dan started to argue before cutting herself off. “Oh, you agreed,” she said, looking bewildered. She handed over her clipboard; Andrew quickly read through the agreement and signed it. “It thought it would be much harder to convince you,” admitted Dan.

Andrew shrugged and handed back her clipboard.

“Be careful walking outside for the next few hours; Matt’s going to have a ladder set up.”

“What, today?” asked Andrew. “It’s barely November.”

“No time like the present,” said Dan brusquely. “November’s always so grey and gloomy and the lights will brighten it up. Besides, this way you can’t change your mind later.”

He rolled his eyes and went back to minding his plants. He worked happily until lunchtime, when his stomach rumbled to let him know the time. He extracted himself from his work and washed the soil off his hands, readying himself for his daily delivery. He watched through his front window as the short, red-headed figure came out of the coffee shop across the road. The rain had stopped earlier, but there were still large puddles which he had to avoid as he darted across the street. He stopped to exchange a quick word with Matt up on his ladder, before passing underneath it (clearly having no common sense) and entering Andrew’s store.

“Hey, Andrew,” called Neil, as the bell on the door signalled his entrance. “I brought your sandwich.”

Neil was a newcomer in town, which was exceedingly rare. Everyone else who moved into town came for a reason—usually because they were related to someone already living there. Andrew and Aaron’s cousin Nicky on their mother’s side had moved there after college with his husband, Erik, wanting to connect with the twins.

He and Erik had opened up the coffee shop across the street where Neil now worked. It was one of Andrew’s favourite places in Palmetto; it was filled with books and squashy chairs and served excellent cocoa (Aunt Bee’s recipe). He’d been known to spend whole lazy days there, curled up in a chair by the window, soaking in the sunlight and reading to his heart’s content.

Almost everyone else he knew had either lived in Palmetto since they were children (like Kevin and Dan and Renee, who co-owned the yoga studio next door where she taught self-defense classes and sparred after hours with Andrew) or had moved there later in life because of family (such as Matt after he married Dan, or Katelyn after she inherited her grandmother’s house, or Allison, Renee’s girlfriend, who taught the actual yoga in the yoga studio). Neil was different. He’d just showed up last spring and stayed. He’d been almost immediately accepted as one of them, renting the basement apartment at Dan and Matt’s place and gaining employment from Nicky and Erik.

Andrew had been intrigued by him from the beginning (the fact that he was gorgeous didn’t hurt). He may have suggested a liaison between them, but Neil had disclosed that he was on the asexual spectrum and thus didn’t have casual relationships while Andrew never let himself get serious about anyone. Still, Nicky kept sending Neil over with Andrew’s lunch, likely as a transparent ploy to set them up, which Andrew didn’t mind. He was surprised to find that Neil was someone he wanted to know. They’d actually become friends in the months since Neil’s arrival; he thought he would be in some real trouble if he hadn’t cast the _amas veritas_ spell to ensure there was only one non-existent man he’d ever love.

Neil exchanged a couple words with Kevin in French (Andrew had also heard him speak Spanish with Nicky and German with Erik), before settling down with Andrew behind the counter with his own sandwich and picking up their conversation about supercars from the previous day.

“So a little birdie tells me your birthday is tomorrow,” said Neil, bundling up his trash after they’d finished eating. “What do you want?”

“You don’t have to get me anything.”

“I know,” replied Neil. “But I’m gonna. I was thinking I could take a look through your accounts? Kevin tells me they’re a shambles and I’m pretty good at math. I put Nicky’s stuff in order for him.”

“That’s too much,” protested Andrew immediately.

“Nah, it’s just enough,” smiled Neil, his brown eyes warm. “Quit arguing and let me do something for you, yeah?”

“Okay,” agreed Andrew, not making eye contact. He didn’t quite know how to handle pretty boys who went out of their way to be nice to him.

Neil nodded and turned to leave the store. “See you tomorrow,” he said.

“No, Monday,” Andrew corrected. “I’m off tomorrow.”

“Then have a happy birthday, and I’ll see you Monday.”

“Hey, Neil?” Andrew called before Neil reached the door. “Go around the ladder not under it, you lazy fuck.”

Neil barked a laugh in response. “Superstitious, are you?”

“Sensible,” replied Andrew, getting back to work. He didn’t watch to see if Neil complied with his advice; he’d already been distracted by him enough for one day.

After work, instead of heading down the street to Wymack’s pub where he had dinner most nights, he got in his car and went home to Reddin Cottage. No fewer than three black cats crossed his path and when he got home there was an owl sitting on the roof, hooting; _something_ was adamantly trying to get its message across.

His arrival at home was expected; tonight was the Hunter’s Moon (it fell late this year, usually it was in October) and as usual he was looking after his aunts’ house in their absence. Aaron was driving in from his own job in Columbia either late this evening or early tomorrow in order to spend their birthday together.

“I’ve been seeing death omens all day,” he announced without preamble.

His aunts shared a loaded look.

“We should stay,” fretted Aunt Bee. “I don’t like missing your birthday.”

“Aaron took all next week off work,” Aunt Abby told her. “We’ll all do something when we’re back.”

“Still…” said Aunt Bee.

“No, Bee,” said Aunt Abby in an uncharacteristically sharp tone. “We talked about this.”

Andrew looked back and forth between them and decided not to ask. He’d seen arguments like this before; Aunt Bee was the only one of them that had any talent with premonition, although it was more often than not completely unclear. More than once she’d predicted something dire only for something mundane to pass. Aunt Abby was of the opinion that interfering was always a bad idea; it was the only thing they truly argued about.

“Be smart,” said Aunt Abby, bending down to kiss his forehead.

“Call us if you need us,” added Aunt Bee, hugging him.

“Take my car,” Andrew blurted. His aunts hadn’t upgraded their car since he’d known them and he didn’t want them driving anywhere in their ancient station wagon that he was convinced ran on magic after seeing death omens all day.

“You’re a good boy,” said Aunt Bee, patting his cheek and taking his keys. He felt a little bereft as he let them go; he hadn’t actually been expecting them to agree.

Once his aunts were gone, he helped himself to the dinner they had left warm in the oven for him and puttered around aimlessly. He went out to the greenhouse to see his plants, but he couldn’t settle. It felt like the calm before the storm, like he was on the precipice of something waiting to fall.

He glanced at the full moon as he returned to the cottage. It was large and red and hanging almost directly overhead. “Blood moon,” he whispered, and the old scar across his palm, the one he’d received when he and Aaron made their promise to each other, started tingling.

Without realizing where he was going, he blindly dashed into the house, picking up the landline a second after it started ringing.

“Aaron,” he gasped into it. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” replied Aaron, not sounding in the least surprised at Andrew’s speedy answer.

“There’s blood on the moon.”

“Not mine,” replied Aaron. “I need your help. Come get me.” He gave his location, a small motel with attached diner about halfway between Columbia and Palmetto where he often stopped for a bite to eat and a break when driving home to visit.

Andrew was already outside before he remembered that he’d have to take the station wagon. Cursing his impulsivity, he tried three times to start it before the engine turned over. Once the headlights turned on he had to stifle a shout as glowing red eyes stared back at him. The large black dog they belonged to stood fearlessly in front of him.

“Be gone, grim,” he muttered, easing the car forward. He didn’t think he could hurt a spectral canine, but it didn’t seem like the best time to test his luck. The dog disappeared into the surrounding trees and Andrew drove along the winding road as fast as he dared.

It took him over an hour to reach Aaron’s location, pushing the old car to its limits to get to him as fast as possible. He parked in front of the motel room Aaron was in and knocked three times. He heard two locks disengaging before Aaron pulled open the door to check his identity, then closed it to remove the final chain lock.

Aaron reached out and grasped Andrew’s shirt, unceremoniously dragging him into the room before shutting and locking the door behind him.

“What is going—” Andrew cut himself off when he saw what was clearly the source of Aaron’s distress lying on the bed in the centre of the room. “Well,” he said faintly, “that certainly is a dead guy.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's prompt is: bottle episode.
> 
> This chapter contains violence, minor gore, murder, dismemberment, reference to sexual assault.

Andrew took a step closer to examine the dead man. He froze when he caught sight of his face, reaching blindly back for Aaron with his scarred hand. Aaron caught it halfway.

“Did he touch you?” Andrew growled, anger at the large _familiar_ man choking his throat.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” replied Aaron peevishly, his own anger evident.

Andrew looked back at Aaron, wondering how he even knew who Drake Spear was.

“He thought I was you and insinuated some things,” said Aaron shortly.

“He didn’t—he wanted to, I read his aura—not that I knew what I was doing—and could see his intentions, but he didn’t. Aunt Bee and Aunt Abby found me in time; he was at my last foster house,” Andrew rambled.

Aaron nodded and looked down at the hulking shape dispassionately. “I was in the diner getting something to eat when he came in. He called me Andrew and I could see he was a danger to us—so I slipped some belladonna into his coffee, let him follow me back here, and waited for him to pass out.”

Andrew tightened his grip. “That was dangerous. You should have come straight home.”

“And led him straight to you?” snorted Aaron.

“He could have hurt you.”

“He couldn’t have hurt anything with how much belladonna I fed him.”

“Why were you even carrying poison around with you?”

“Aunt Bee asked me to bring some home for one of her potions. She also suggested that I bring a large amount of cash, which was helpful in getting a room anonymously.”

Andrew considered arguing further but decided what was done was done. There were other things they had to deal with now, namely, “We need to dispose of the body,” he said. “If he’s found, if they can track him back to you…”

“He needs to disappear,” agreed Aaron. “Let’s get him back to the house; we can bury him out in the woods.”

They wrapped him in the comforter like a fat sausage. Andrew performed a quick light’s out spell to dim the outside lights so no one could see what they were doing. Then, they transferred Drake’s extremely heavy body into the trunk of the station wagon—Andrew was momentarily grateful that he’d switched cars with his aunts. He didn’t want to imagine trying to stuff such a large, foul-smelling object into the trunk of his GT.

Andrew led the way home, making sure to keep to the speed limit and be as inconspicuous as possible. He’d gotten the trunk open and was surveying the comforter-wrapped body when Aaron pulled up behind him. He got out of his car, and wordlessly took his place beside Andrew, biting his lip and putting his hands on his hips.

“Take him inside?” suggested Andrew. He didn’t know what else to do; he had very little experience with disposing of dead bodies—which he supposed was a good thing, but did make him feel like he was a little out of his depth.

Aaron grunted his acknowledgement and grabbed the foot end, dragging the body out of the car. It was extremely heavy and unwieldy; without the urgency caused by worry about someone seeing them, transporting it seemed somehow more difficult. They dragged Drake’s corpse through the side door and hoisted him onto the table, letting the comforter unwrap.

“Should we… cut it into smaller pieces?” asked Aaron tentatively, wiping the sweat from his brow with his arm and panting from exertion. “I don’t fancy dragging it in one piece out past the back pasture. He's a solid motherfucker.”

“I guess,” said Andrew dubiously. “With an axe?”

Aaron headed out to the woodshed behind the house, while Andrew tried to determine if any of their knives were sharp or strong enough to cut through human bone. Maybe the cleaver, he decided, when the clock in the hall chimed one hour after midnight and the body on the table shifted.

Andrew turned at the noise, dismayed to find Drake blinking stupidly and trying to sit up. “You,” hissed Drake, his eyes narrowing when he caught sight of Andrew.

His surprise made him freeze and Drake lunged in his direction, grabbing the front of his shirt and dragging him closer. Andrew pitched forward, tripping and hitting his head on the edge of the table.

“Andrew!” cried Aaron, causing Drake to do a double take as Aaron rushed into the room, an axe raised in his hands.

Andrew took advantage of his confusion to hit him with the first thing he could grab—Aunt Bee’s scrying bowl. It was old and made of stone so dark blue it looked almost black and was polished to a shine. It broke into pieces as he cracked it across Drake’s temple. Drake slumped, just as Aaron buried the axe in his chest.

Andrew took up the cleaver he’d been considering and slit his throat to ensure he was really dead this time.

Silence echoed through the room, the only sounds audible were his and Aaron’s heavy breathing and the near-silent drip of blood onto the floor.

“Fuck,” breathed out Andrew. “That was Bee’s favourite scrying dish.”

Aaron hiccuped a hysterical-sounding laugh. “I’ll buy her a new one,” he said. His eyes focused on Andrew. “Are you alright?”

“My head hurts,” said Andrew, gingerly touching his temple, where he’d hit the table. He glared at Aaron. “I’m never trusting your measurements again. ‘I totally killed him with poison’,” he said in a high, mocking voice.

“Shut up, I used enough to kill him.”

“Evidently not,” said Andrew, indicating the _now_ dead body that apparently hadn’t been before.

“I’m sure he was dead,” said Aaron contemplatively. It worried Andrew; Aaron had inherited Aunt Abby’s natural talent for healing and shouldn’t have made such an amateur mistake.

He ignored his unease in favour of pulling the axe out of Drake’s flesh. “Let’s just carve him up and bury him.”

* * *

It was almost dawn by the time they finished disposing of the body. They buried the motel comforter and the scrying bowl with him in the grave they dug between two palmetto trees, the earth giving way easily due to all the rain recently. Then they returned to the house and bleached every inch of the kitchen, as well as the axe and the cleaver. Even with their thorough cleaning, Drake’s blood had seeped into the old oak of the kitchen table; Andrew doubted it could ever be used again. He chopped it into kindling and they burnt it in the fireplace. Aaron made restorative tea, and they sipped it in silence watching the last piece of evidence of their night’s misadventures burn to ash.

“Happy birthday,” said Andrew wryly.

“We’ll have to get rid of the station wagon,” said Aaron. “There might be trace evidence inside.”

“We’ll do it on Monday,” said Andrew, yawning. “Let’s just stay in for the weekend.”

Aaron acquiesced easily. “I’m not sorry,” he blurted after another couple minutes spend in companionable silence.

“Me neither,” said Andrew. He wasn’t. Drake deserved no pity or remembrance. Maybe he didn’t have the right to decide who lived and who died, but he wasn’t going to waste any time lamenting what they had done.

Aaron took a sip of his tea. “So what’s new with you?” he asked lightly.

Andrew huffed, but updated him about what had been happening in the town since he’d moved away last winter. He could hear the silences around what he wasn’t saying—neither of them mentioned Drake or the Spears or the fact that they’d killed a man. Andrew also didn’t mention anything about a certain barmaid who worked at Wymack’s pub, and he found himself avoiding all references to Neil, who Aaron had never met and presumably didn’t know existed.

They passed the day quietly, their silences and ease of existing with each other familiar and comforting. Aaron insisted on caking Andrew’s head wound with a healing poultice that smelled of algae and lime. They also smudged the entire house with sage and placed angelica root in its four corners to purify it of all bad energy. For dinner, Andrew made a cake (Aaron wrinkled his nose and asked for real food; Andrew was of the opinion that birthday cake was a completely acceptable meal). Andrew left out a bowl of vinegar to evaporate overnight and cleanse the air when they retired to bed early; worn out from their sleepless night.

Andrew woke early the next morning feeling disconcerted. He didn’t remember his dreams, which was unusual, and he felt like he was forgetting something of vital importance. He shook off the odd feeling and got up; padding down the stairs to make coffee and breakfast.

He and Aaron spent another quiet day at home, tending to the plants in the greenhouse and performing minor chores around the house and property. Aaron made up another stock of poultices and healing teas for Andrew to sell in his shop. The day had an odd, dream-like quality to it. Andrew felt goosebumps rise on his skin inexplicably several times, and more than once he felt eyes on him. He ignored both sensations, telling himself that the feral cats that made their homes in the surrounding areas were watching him from afar.

His dreams that night were full of blood and laughter and the baying of hounds. He jerked awake, feeling phantom hands holding him down. He leapt from his bed and swallowed the bile in his throat, reminding himself that he was safe, that he’d been safe for over a decade. That his aunts had kept their promise and he’d never been touched without his permission since the day they brought him home.

Aaron was already awake and busy in the kitchen, frowning into a pan of what looked to be eggs. Although, knowing Aaron’s skill (or lack thereof) with cooking, it really could be anything.

“Get some herbs,” he told Andrew distractedly. “Something protective. Rosemary, or thyme, or maybe—” he cut himself off as a broom they’d left propped against the wall fell to the ground without rhyme or reason.

“Company is coming,” intoned Andrew.

Aaron shot him an annoyed look. “We didn’t fucking invite anyone. Don’t be superstitious. And get my herbs.”

“Cause that’s not superstitious at all,” said Andrew sarcastically as he slipped on his muck boots to head out to the greenhouse. He stopped short and cursed as soon as he opened the side door. All the weirdness from the day before suddenly made sense. In the distance, between two palmetto trees, freshly turned grave dirt was ominously covered with unseasonable purple tulips in full bloom.

Strewn about his feet on the side porch were black roses that had been torn into potpourri, along with something far more disturbing. It had been the Hunter’s Moon, he realized, the one night a year that the Wild Hunt took to the skies. The ancient magic was loathe to relinquish its hold on its hunters, and Drake had definitely been a predator.

“What is it?” asked Aaron, coming up behind him.

Andrew bent down and carefully picked up the broken pieces of the scrying bowl that he had last seen as it he slowly shovelled black earth over top of it. “We’re being haunted,” he complained, showing Aaron what he was holding. “Asshole just won’t stay dead.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's prompt is: Aaron, with Andrew's people
> 
> This chapter contains references to child abuse, and scars

Aaron hissed in anger and backed away from the broken scrying bowl. “Maybe an animal dug it up?” he suggested, but he didn’t sound even remotely convinced.

“And planted a bunch of purple tulips? And left shredded black roses for us?” asked Andrew sardonically. The tulips signified new birth and the black roses were for death and hatred.

“Fuck,” said Aaron. The windows rattled in their frames, despite the lack of breeze. “Fuck off, Drake,” said Aaron, louder. “You deserve worse than what you got.” He turned to Andrew. “What do you know about hauntings?”

“Not much and nothing good,” replied Andrew. “I’m going to call Aunt Bee.” His call went directly to voicemail. He left a terse message and tried Aunt Abby’s cell, getting the same response.

He sent Aaron a helpless look.

“Well, let’s purify the place again, anyway,” said Aaron, although they’d already smudged the whole house with sage during their cleanup yesterday. Andrew nodded and wordlessly got to work.

When they were finished, Aaron surveyed the room with a look of distaste on his face. “I guess I’ll research banishings while you’re at work today?”

“I don’t want you here alone,” said Andrew.

“You want to stay at your place until our aunts return?”

“No,” said Andrew. Their magic was strongest at Reddin and, “I’m not letting the malicious ghost of a two-bit abuser chase me out of my home.”

“Fine, I’ll spend the day at Nicky’s,” said Aaron. His expression turned sly, “Which will give me a good chance to scope out the new guy. Don’t think I didn’t notice his conspicuous absence from your stories.”

Andrew groaned in annoyance and chastised himself for forgetting that he wasn’t the only person in town Aaron talked to. Of course Nicky would have made a big deal about his new employee that he was pushing at Andrew.

“He’s nothing,” muttered Andrew, although his unwillingness to make eye contact probably told Aaron more than his words did.

Andrew headed out to the station wagon and dutifully followed Aaron to the dump outside of town. He paid to have the car crushed into a cube and then climbed into the passenger seat of Aaron’s car, feeling lighter.

“I’m glad I have an excuse to finally put that thing out of its misery,” he said.

“With our luck, it’ll just come back and haunt us,” drawled Aaron.

“At least we’ll be experienced ghostbusters after this.”

Aaron rolled his eyes as he pulled his car out of the lot, “Who ya gonna call?” he said dryly.

Aaron came into the store with Andrew to greet Kevin, who had worked himself up into a panic because Andrew was slightly later than usual after leaving Kevin to mind the store alone on a Saturday.

“You had all day yesterday to recover,” Andrew pointed out. They never opened on Sundays, there just wasn’t enough foot traffic in such a small town. The majority of their sales were shipments, anyway.

Kevin and Aaron chatted for a couple minutes, which was the maximum amount of time Aaron could handle dealing with Kevin. He’d always had a much lower threshold for his bullshit than Andrew did. They’d never had too many friends in common (not that either of them had a lot of close friends outside of each other), generally not tolerating the same types of people. Aaron wasn’t a fan of either Kevin or Renee, and Andrew absolutely loathed Allison Reynolds, who Aaron had gotten along with like a house on fire ever since she followed Renee to Palmetto.

Andrew didn’t have particularly high hopes that Aaron would like Neil. Not that it mattered whether he did or not.

Aaron headed across the street before long, carrying a couple large tomes from their aunts’ home library, which had long ago been spelled to appear as something uninteresting to anyone else who saw them. Andrew spent the morning driven to distraction, trying to peer through the cafe’s front window to see if Aaron was speaking with Neil and wanting to know what they were saying.

Or maybe he didn’t, he realized as Aaron trailed Neil out of the shop at Andrew’s normal lunchtime. Neil was carrying a couple sandwiches and turned back to say something to Aaron, flashing him a grin. Maybe it was a very bad idea for Aaron and Neil to interact.

Neil’s laugh pealed through Andrew’s shop as he pushed the door open. Andrew instantly felt jealous that he hadn’t been the one to make Neil laugh like that and then immediately buried that thought as deep as it could go. Neil was his _friend_ and nothing more, he reminded himself. He would never be anything more. It didn’t matter to Andrew what he did.

Neil turned his devastating smile on Andrew. “Your brother is telling outrageous lies about you,” he said.

“Is he,” said Andrew flatly, flicking his eyes to Aaron.

“I solemnly swear I haven’t said a single thing that isn’t one hundred percent true,” said Aaron, placing his right hand over his heart.

“There’s no way Andrew is afraid of butterflies,” argued Neil, shaking his head. Andrew kept his face still, despite how much he wanted to glare at Aaron. He was _not_ afraid of butterflies. Sure, he didn’t want them to land on him with their icky bug legs, and he always ducked and swatted if he happened to see one in his peripheral vision, but those were completely natural reactions.

“Don’t worry,” said Neil blithely, taking his usual seat at the counter and handing over Andrew’s sandwich. “I won’t let him slander your character like that; I’ve got your back.”

Something warm settled in Andrew’s stomach and he had to look away. Unfortunately, he looked right at Aaron, who was giving him a knowing, smug look.

Lunch passed by quickly; they discussed what they’d done on their days off (Neil had apparently decided to start training for a marathon in the spring, because he was a heathen who actually liked running; Andrew simply answered that he hadn’t done much—which was basically true, if he ignored the whole murdering-someone-and-being-haunted bit, which he was trying to).

“He’s pretty,” said Aaron, after Neil claimed he had to get back to work and left them.

Andrew levelled him with a look. “No homo?”

Aaron rolled his eyes. “I can recognize another man’s attractiveness without it impinging on my fragile masculinity. He’s a good looking, sassy, unrepentant asshole. Did you go straight to your knees when you met him or did you simply cream yourself?”

“You’re disgusting,” replied Andrew. “And it’s not like that.”

“Why not? He’s clearly into you.”

“He doesn’t do casual,” said Andrew. “And you know why I don’t do anything but.”

Aaron’s face went thoughtful. “I guess it’s safer that way,” he conceded.

* * *

“Did you find anything?” Andrew asked, as he pushed into Wymack’s pub. His own apartment rarely had food in it—Nicky always fed him breakfast and lunch and he ate dinner at either Wymack’s or his aunts, too lazy to bother cooking for himself. He and Aaron could make something for themselves at home, but he assumed that Drake wasn’t a particularly happy or pleasant ghost and didn’t want to deal with cooking dinner while he rattled the pots and pans or did anything even more irritating.

“I found a spell to resurrect him in the family grimoire,” said Aaron.

Andrew couldn’t help but shiver at the thought of Drake returning. “That’s useless.”

“And apparently horrifying. The spell was created to resurrect our great-great-great-grandmother’s dead love who was killed by the curse, but according to the annotations came pretty close to creating a zombie apocalypse.”

“I’m surprised she’s the only one who ever tried it. Mixing heartbroken witches with dead lovers seems like a recipe for necromancy.”

“The pictures are very discouraging,” said Aaron, taking a seat in Andrew’s regular booth. He froze partway down, his mouth dropping open.

“Shit,” said Andrew, catching sight of what had caused Aaron’s reaction. “I forgot.” He kicked Aaron in the shin to get him to stop staring so obviously.

There were a couple reasons why Aaron had decided to move away from town—the atmosphere could be stifling and the distrust towards them from most of Palmetto’s residents was grating. Moving to a bigger city allowed him to practice his healing gift more widely (he had a job as a naturopath, offering alternative medical advice). And he had been well on his way to falling in love.

Katelyn had moved to town two years previously when she inherited her grandmother’s house and she and Aaron had hit it off right away. Andrew had been mostly indifferent to her until he recognized that Aaron was in danger of falling for her and breaking his own heart. Opting for the Aunt Abby method of dealing with feelings, Aaron had left town without a word of explanation.

Judging by the anger flashing in Katelyn’s eyes when she brought glasses of water over to them, she wasn’t likely to forgive or forget any time soon.

“What do you want?” she bit out.

“Uhh…” stuttered Aaron.

She brandished her writing pad at them. “To eat.”

“Katelyn—” said Aaron, looking pained.

“I want to hear nothing from you except your order,” she cut him off.

“I’ll have the Shepherd’s Pie,” said Andrew. Although Wymack’s mostly had traditional pub fare, they also had a wide variety of comfort dishes, like meatloaf and mac and cheese and traditional meat pies. “And he’ll have the fish and chips.” There wasn’t any way that Aaron was going to bring his brain back online enough to order any time soon.

Katelyn huffed away from their table; Aaron’s eyes followed her longingly.

“You could explain to her,” suggested Andrew, not liking the helpless feeling he got from witnessing his brother’s misery.

“Sure,” scoffed Aaron. “Because ‘I’m under a curse’ is such an excellent excuse for ghosting her like a douchebag.”

It was a testament to how unhappy Aaron looked that Andrew didn’t make a comment about his use of the term ‘ghosting’. “Maybe—”

“Leave it,” sighed Aaron. “It’s better that she’s alive and hating me to the alternative.”

* * *

It turned out Andrew was completely justified in believing that Drake was an asshole ghost. The ivy, rowan, and blackberry protective wreath that Aunt Abby wove and hung on the door each spring had been turned into confetti. The greenhouse was also in shambles; all the sage and several other protective herbs had been dug up by the roots and destroyed.

“Guess he doesn’t want to be repelled,” said Andrew, surveying the carnage.

“Fuck what he wants,” said Aaron. “Get some cloves; I’m going to make us protection charms.”

* * *

For all that Andrew was not going to be chased out of his home by the ghost of his would-be abuser, he was more than a little relieved to head to work the next morning. He and Aaron had spent a mostly-sleepless night, but either their protection charms had worked or Drake had no desire to bother them further because they saw no more evidence of his presence.

Aaron dropped Andrew off and headed out of town; although Andrew had a small amount of sage in his shop and apartment, he didn’t have nearly enough to replenish the plants they’d lost. Aaron was heading to the nearest nursery to stock up on any plants and herbs that may prove useful.

After his second sleepless night in four days, Andrew felt little better than roadkill or the orange mush left over from teenagers smashing pumpkins on Hallowe’en. The weather was grey again, after two days of sunshine, and everything felt soggy.

He was so out of it he didn’t notice Neil bringing over the cup of coffee that he’d texted Nicky for after his first one hadn’t given him enough of a caffeine hit. He started in surprise when Neil said his name, turning so quickly that he knocked into Neil and spilled the coffee all down his front.

“Fuck,” hissed Neil, flinching back from the hot liquid.

“Shit, sorry,” said Andrew, ineffectually trying to mop up the stain by patting it with his hands.

“You alright?” asked Neil, looking concerned.

“I’m not the one covered in boiling coffee.”

“But you’re a million miles away. Everything okay?”

A wave of desire to tell Neil the truth hit Andrew so strongly that he almost stumbled from the vertigo. He didn’t know where it came from; he was taught early in his childhood never to complain or ask for help and it has remained with him all these years, despite his aunts’ best efforts.

Still, he nodded jerkily. “Everything’s fine,” he said, making Neil’s eyes narrow but he didn’t press. Instead, he looked down at his stained shirt and slumped in defeat.

“You can’t go back to work like that,” Andrew said. “Here, I should have something that will almost fit you.” His shirts were slightly too roomy in the shoulders and short in the sleeves, but would come close to Neil’s size. It was fortunate that he only had a couple inches on Andrew, unlike most men who towered above his five feet.

Andrew led him up to his apartment, feeling oddly amped up with anticipation. He left Neil standing in his small living room and rifled through his closet to find the shirt that would best fit him. He resolutely ignored the way it was making him feel to imagine Neil in his clothes.

When he returned, Neil moved to unbutton his shirt and then paused, looking up at Andrew and biting his lip.

“You can change in the washroom,” offered Andrew.

“No, it’s—” Neil obviously steeled himself and then removed his shirt.

Andrew felt as if his breath had been punched out of him. Neil’s chest was liberally scarred, with slashes and burns and other cuts and scrapes. The evidence of a violent past was written all over him and Andrew had to ball his hands into fists to keep from reaching out and exploring with his fingertips. He wanted to run his tongue over him and feel the different textures.

The largest scar was centred over Neil’s heart; it was faded red and curiously heart-shaped. “How did you get that?” Andrew blurted before he could stop himself. He reached out but snatched his hand back in time.

Neil looked at him shrewdly. “You can touch,” he said, but in a way that showed he had no idea why Andrew would want to.

Andrew spread his hand over the scar, fitting his fingers against the evenly spaced absences along one of the lobes of the heart shape.

“A hot iron,” said Neil. “My dad was...well, he was angry.”

Andrew almost growled in rage at the thought of someone hurting Neil like that, but now that he knew what it was, he could see it. The hot iron had been pressed twice to his skin, slightly overlapping so that the rounded ends made the two lobes of the heart.

“An iron heart,” he muttered to himself. His eyes flicked to the chain that Neil always wore around his neck; the pendant was a shield.

He took a shaky step backwards, his mind frantically trying to convince him that his senses were lying to him. “Take out your contacts,” he said. He’d noticed Neil wore them—the plastic ring around his iris was evident—but he’d assumed they were corrective lenses.

Neil stared uncomprehendingly for a moment, before shrugging and removing his left lens, trusting Andrew absolutely like he always had. His eye blinked open, now impossibly blue, and Andrew’s heart throbbed painfully.

“Why are you here?” he asked. He’d never expected this, never imagined that his pipe dream could actually exist, never thought that it could be _Neil_. He wasn’t stupid, of course he’d noticed the traits that Neil shared with his wished-for true love, but he’d dismissed it as coincidence, ignoring the voice in his head that whispered, _there’s no such thing as coincidence_.

“Oh,” said Neil, again taking Andrew’s abrupt topic shift in stride. He replaced his brown contact and started buttoning up the borrowed shirt. “As you can probably guess, my father wasn’t the nicest man.” He gestured with false-casualness to his wasteland of a chest. “My mother and I spend most of my childhood moving around trying to keep away from him. We lived all over.”

“Twenty two names,” muttered Andrew.

Neil blinked in surprise. “Yeah. But both my parents died after a confrontation a couple years ago. I drifted until then, never being able to settle anywhere. Until I got to Palmetto, and I just knew it was right. I just felt like I belonged.” He shrugged helplessly.

Andrew couldn’t deal with this right now, he was already being haunted. He needed to get Neil away from him as soon as possible. He crossed the room and opened the door, holding it open for Neil to leave. “I don’t think we should see each other any more,” he said with finality.

Neil’s face went completely blank. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, stop bringing me lunch, stop talking to me, stop trying to be my friend. I don’t want it.”

“What are you—”

“Look,” said Andrew, cutting him off and avoiding looking directly at him, “you’re fairly good looking and in a town like this, it’s not like I have a lot of choice. When you said you didn’t hook up, I figured I could put a little effort to get you into bed. But then—” he shrugged, feigning as much indifference as he could “—I saw what you have to offer—” a dismissive wave of his hand towards Neil’s torso “—and I’m not interested anymore.”

Neil gaped at him, completely at a loss for words. If Andrew wasn’t feeling like he was the lowest scum to ever exist he would be patting himself on the back for finally figuring out how to shut Neil up (a traitorous part of his brain told him that kissing him would probably work too).

“So I really have no further need to pretend,” finished Andrew, gesturing Neil out of his apartment. “Wash the shirt before you return it.”

“You can’t be serious,” said Neil heatedly.

Andrew simply raised an eyebrow and waited. Inside, he was begging Neil to leave quickly because he couldn’t keep this up for much longer without crumbling.

“Fine,” huffed Neil, raising his chin defiantly. “Let me know when you’ve decided to stop being a lying asshole and I’ll see if I feel like forgiving you.” He swept past Andrew and out of his apartment.

Andrew closed the door and leaned against it, sliding down to sit on the floor. He waited until Neil’s retreating footsteps were no longer audible before he let himself fall apart.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's prompt is: Andrew, with Aaron's people
> 
> This chapter contains alcohol consumption and drunkenness, possession, vomiting, injury and reference to blood, supernatural stalking, threats of bodily harm

“Where the fuck have you been?” demanded Aaron, stomping through the front door. “Kevin said you fucked off without any explanation after lunch.”

Andrew used what felt like all of his energy to turn his head to look at him. Aaron seemed to be unsteady, he kept moving around. He was also horizontal for some reason.

“Stay still,” Andrew slurred, and maybe the fact that he was lying down on the couch was why Aaron looked strange? Was a filter in front of his eyes making everything blurry?

“Are you fucking drunk?” asked Aaron in exasperation. “Now? Is this really the time for it?”

“Sure,” said Andrew, reaching for the bottle of bourbon on the coffee table beside him. He missed the first time he swiped at it. Frowning, he tried again. Aaron batted his hand away. Andrew made grabby hands to get the bottle back. It was much less full than he thought it should be, but that was probably Drake’s fault. Damn ghost was stealing his alcohol.

“We’re being haunted, if you forgot,” Aaron said, heading to the kitchen with the bourbon. Andrew heard the tap run briefly before Aaron returned with a glass of water. “Drink that,” he commanded.

He tried to prop Andrew up, but he successfully eeled out of his grasp. “No.”

Aaron looked down at him, probably looking exasperated, but his face was blurry from Andrew’s perspective. “What happened?” he asked.

“Did you know,” said Andrew slowly, “that Neil has an iron heart? And can speak six languages? And… a lot of others things I forget right now, but that I asked for.”

“Fuck,” said Aaron, collapsing into the nearest armchair. He took a swig from the bottle of bourbon. “He’s your pipe dream.”

Andrew tried to point at him, but was having a little trouble pinpointing his exact location. “My impossible man,” he agreed. “He actually exists.”

“I can’t believe that spell worked,” marvelled Aaron.

“Didn’t work,” said Andrew grumpily. “Was supposed to keep me from losing anyone else. But now he’s here and he’s going to die and I’ll be alone forever.”

“You won’t be alone,” said Aaron. “You’ve got me.”

“And bourbon,” prompted Andrew.

Aaron chuckled humorlessly. “And bourbon.”

* * *

Upon waking the next morning, Andrew immediately longed to return to blessed unconsciousness. His throat was dry, even though Aaron had eventually convinced him to drink several glasses of water and eat some toast, and his head felt like there was an entire marching band putting on a show in there.

But the pain that had woken him was a sharp stabbing feeling in his hand. He forced his eyes open, wincing against the light and stared for several seconds. The old scar on his palm had opened up and was bleeding freely. His brain was sluggish in understanding what he was seeing, but once he did he jumped into action.

“Aaron!” he cried, hurrying out of bed. He swayed on his feet and almost vomited, but he grit his teeth and headed to Aaron’s bedroom, grabbing the protection amulet he and Aaron had made two days previously from his bedside table on his way out of the room.

All the windows in the house were open, something which Andrew’s hungover brain hadn’t registered as odd until now. Black roses were strewn throughout the house and the pervasive smell of rot hung in the air.

Aaron was standing in the middle of his bedroom when Andrew frantically pushed the door open, his head cocked at an odd angle. He turned slowly, as if not used to his limbs. His face split in a wide grin when he caught sight of Andrew, his normally hazel eyes glowing an unearthly blue.

“Drake,” spat Andrew. “Get out of him.”

“Don’t worry, AJ, plenty of me to go around.” It was Aaron’s voice but the intonation was off; his words sounded thick and wrong.

“I won’t ask you again,” said Andrew through gritted teeth, ignoring his physical complaints as best he could. It wasn’t easy; he could barely stand without swaying.

“You can’t hurt me as long as I control him,” taunted Drake through Aaron’s mouth, “and I have no intention of letting him go. I wanted you, but I must say I’m having fun with him.”

Andrew lunged, hoping the element of surprise would make up for his illness. He swung the protection amulet in a wide arc hitting Aaron in the chest. Aaron screamed and fell back but Andrew didn’t let up, pinning him to the floor and pressing the amulet against his heart.

“Get out of my brother,” he growled. He felt like a live wire, magic humming through his blood. Minyards had been living here for generations, their magic seeping into the walls and the very foundations of Reddin Cottage. He forgot his aches and pains as the power infused him and channelled all his family’s years of ownership to force the interloper out. “Get out of my house. You are not welcome here.”

He was knocked back and as all the windows in the house slammed shut. Panes of glass cracked in spiderweb patterns before shattering completely.

The room was eerily silent; all he could hear was Aaron’s heavy panting and the far off sounds of glass tinkling to the floor. Aaron looked up with his regular hazel eyes at Andrew who was still straddling his legs.

“You hurt?” asked Andrew.

Aaron shuddered. “Get off.” Andrew rolled to the side as Aaron dragged himself over to his garbage bin and retched into it. Andrew’s hangover made itself apparent again; he put all his energy into concentrating on not bringing up everything inside of him.

“I could feel what he was thinking,” said Aaron once he stopped dry heaving. “His thoughts were—Fuck, I’m glad he’s dead. I’ll kill him again and again until it sticks.”

Andrew looked around the ruined room. “What do we do now?”

“Fuck if I know,” said Aaron, lying back on the floor. “Give up, probably.” There were a couple minutes of silence, before he groaned and sat up. “No. We’re not letting that fucker win. We’ll clean up the glass, call Abby and Bee again, and then you’ll go to work and I’ll go talk to Matt about replacing the windows. He doesn’t get to chase us out of our house.”

Andrew closed his eyes and willed the room to stop spinning. “But first a little hair of the dog,” he said, his voice pathetic.

Aaron looked over at him and snorted. “Alright, first I’ll make you some hangover remedy.”

“You’re my favourite brother,” Andrew told him fervently. He reached out with his bloody palm, the wound already closed, and caught Aaron’s hand to lever himself off the floor.

* * *

After leaving both his aunts increasingly irate messages he knew he was going to hear about in the future (something about _old hags who don’t know how to use their phones properly_), Andrew headed into town. He was halfway to Nicky’s shop for his usual breakfast coffee and pastry before he caught himself, spinning on his heel and heading to Wymack’s instead. In all the excitement of the morning, he’d forgotten momentarily about Neil and how he was avoiding him.

Katelyn, working a rare morning shift, didn’t seem particularly happy to see him, but she came over to take his order anyway.

“Coffee,” said Andrew. The hangover remedy had cured their worst of his complaints, but he still felt like actual, literal garbage. “As strong as you can make it. And grease. Just—the greasiest breakfast food you have.”

She smirked at him, but didn’t question him, heading back to call in his order and get his coffee.

“You’re a goddess,” he said when she returned, although he wasn’t sure if he was speaking to her or to the coffee.

She slid into the seat across from him and looked at him expectantly.

“What?” he asked warily.

“Is your brother hiding?” she asked. “Or has he already skipped town?”

“Neither,” said Andrew.

“So you’re the one who’s hiding,” she said triumphantly. “You’re here because you’re avoiding Neil.”

Fuck, but he hated the way gossip travelled in a small town.

“So, tell me,” she continued conversationally, “does cowardice run in your blood, or is it learned behaviour?”

“Every full moon our aunts took us out to learn how to fly on broomsticks and be cowards,” said Andrew sarcastically. He was far too tired to engage with her goading.

She crossed her arms tightly across her chest and her lips thinned into a line.

“What do you want me to say? He has a reason but it’s one you won’t accept or understand.”

“Your ‘curse’, I presume?” she asked, making big exaggerated air quotes.

“If you already know, why bother asking?”

“Because curses aren’t real, Andrew!” she said sharply. “Magic isn’t real! It’s nothing but superstition and coincidence.”

He didn’t bother correcting her.

“No, what’s happening here is that the two of you are scared: of opening yourselves up, of being vulnerable, and you use a shoddy excuse to push people away. Everyone with eyes can see what Neil means to you, what Aaron felt for me, but you won’t let yourselves be happy.”

There was a sharp pain behind Andrew’s left eye. Why wasn’t his food here yet? “You don’t know anything about me or my life,” he said. “Now, leave me alone or I’ll complain to Wymack that his staff was harassing me.”

Katelyn frowned but stood. “My grandma always told me to avoid the Minyards; I should have listened to her.” She stalked away, only to return to slam his food down in front of him. He fell on it like a starving man and scarfed it down. He felt a lot better with food in his stomach, but Katelyn’s words kept echoing through his head. The curse _was_ real, that was why he had pushed Neil away. So why did he feel like she was right, that he was just scared?

The morning dragged by. Kevin gave him a wide berth, glancing at him from time to time surreptitiously. He hadn’t offered any explanation for why he’d begged off work yesterday afternoon, but he assumed that Kevin had heard the gossip.

His gaze kept wandering over to Nicky’s shop across the street without his permission. Every time he realized what he was doing, he wrenched his eyes away, only to find himself looking back out the window a couple minutes later. It got even worse around lunchtime; even though he knew that Neil wasn’t coming over it hadn’t sunk in yet.

Nicky himself came over with lunch and a cup of coffee for both Andrew and Kevin. He chatted nonstop with false cheer, not saying anything about Neil or making any reference to it being out of the ordinary for him to be the one delivering Andrew's lunch. Andrew felt himself growing even more exhausted listening to Nicky’s prattle, but he was grateful to his cousin for at least trying to pretend that everything was normal.

Andrew sent Kevin home after lunch, wanting to escape his obvious disapproval. He regretted it almost instantly; Kevin wasn’t good company but at least it was better than Andrew being alone with his thoughts.

Aaron showed up with two pizzas from the only pizza place in town and a tub of cookie dough ice cream as Andrew was closing the store. “Matt took measurements and ordered new windows,” he reported. “In the meantime, he put up that weatherproof plastic sheeting. As long as it doesn’t get too cold in the next week, we should be okay.”

“I half-expected you to say he made an excuse.” Matt had the biggest bro-crush on Neil that Andrew had ever seen; if people in town were taking sides, he would definitely be on Neil’s.

“I don’t think he’s particularly _happy_ with you, but he’s a professional and an adult. He’s minding his own business.”

Andrew sighed. “Can we sleep here tonight?”

“I thought we weren’t retreating?” asked Aaron, but he automatically turned to head up the stairs to Andrew’s apartment.

“I’m so tired,” whined Andrew. “I need a full night’s sleep with no asshole ghosts disturbing me.”

“Fine, but I’m not sleeping on your awful couch; we’re sharing the bed.”

“Fine,” said Andrew. His bed was big enough for both of them and he knew from past experience that Aaron wasn’t a twitchy sleeper. “Did you remember to get extra garlic dipping sauce for the crust?”

“What do I look like, an amateur?”

* * *

After eating almost an entire pizza and half a tub of ice cream, Andrew threw himself into bed and fell deeply asleep almost immediately. The next morning he felt leagues better, despite Aaron’s snoring and hogging of the blankets. He made a pot of coffee and ate cold leftover pizza for breakfast, leaving the last remaining slice for Aaron when he woke up later. He made his way downstairs and opened up his shop. It was Kevin’s day off, and today he revelled in the quiet, spending quality time with his plants. Aaron showed up a couple hours later and started puttering around the store, randomly rearranging shelves as he saw fit.

Nicky came across the street before lunch, his face troubled.

“Hey, Andrew,” he said hesitantly. “Do you know where Neil is?”

“Obviously not,” said Andrew shortly.

“It’s just that he’s missing?” said Nicky, his voice pitching up at the end as if he was asking Andrew instead of telling him. “He didn’t come to work this morning but according to Matt he left his place at the usual time. No one’s seen him since and we’re not sure where he could be.”

There was a loud crash. It took Andrew several moments to realize that he’d dropped the plant he was holding and the ceramic pot had shattered, spilling soil and leaves all over his shoes.

“Calm,” said Aaron, appearing at his side and gripping his elbow. “Panicking won’t help him.”

Andrew looked at him helplessly.

“We’ll go scry for him, alright?” said Aaron. “He’s probably forgotten his shift and gone running or something stupid. Nicky,” he said without looking away from Andrew, whose hands were trembling now. What if the curse had already gotten Neil? What if he was gone forever and the last thing Andrew told him was that he didn’t want to see him ever again? “Go brew Andrew a cup of chamomile. Then we’ll close up and go look for Neil.”

Nicky slumped in relief, before scurrying back across the street to get Andrew the calming tea.

“Steady,” said Aaron under his breath. “No deathwatch beetle.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s alive,” said Andrew. He met Aaron’s eyes. “What if Drake—”

“Then we’ll deal with it,” Aaron said, cutting him off. “We’ll figure this out. Together.”

* * *

Andrew hated scrying. It always made his head ache and it rarely worked for him; usually he just ended up feeling stupid while staring into a bowl of liquid.

After staring for what felt like an interminable amount of time into the grape juice that Aaron had poured into Aunt Bee’s second best scrying bowl, Andrew sat back and rubbed his eyes.

“I can’t get a read on him,” he admitted. “It feels slippery, like I’m being blocked by something.”

“Let me try,” said Aaron, sliding the bowl over. Scrying for someone was usually easiest if you had an emotional connection with them, but Aaron was better at it than Andrew was. He may have more success.

Andrew got up and ate a handful of goldfish crackers. What he really wanted was to break open the whisky again; he was having a really bad week.

His phone buzzed in his pocket, startling him out of his thoughts. Assuming it was Nicky with news, he made a grab for it and almost fumbled when Neil’s contact information came up.

“Where are you?” he rasped as soon as he accepted the call.

“Oh, he’s fine,” said a woman’s voice that he couldn’t immediately identify. “Well, maybe not fine. Alive, at least. He’s here with me.”

Andrew closed his eyes, trying to figure out why she sounded so familiar. It was right at the edge of his senses—“Katelyn,” he said, putting it together. “What’s going on?”

Aaron swivelled his head around to look at him so quickly that Andrew assumed he must have wrenched something.

Katelyn gave an odd, high-pitched laugh that sounded completely wrong. “Not quite, AJ.”

“Drake,” growled Andrew, putting the phone on speaker as Aaron paled.

“You might have gotten me out of your brother, but you can’t keep everyone you care about safe,” said Drake through Katelyn’s lips.

“If you hurt her—” started Aaron.

“You’ll what? Kill me? You already tried and failed.”

“What do you want, Drake?” demanded Andrew.

“Why, I want to hurt you, of course,” trilled Katelyn’s voice. “You denied me my fun when you were younger but now I can do whatever I like and you can’t stop me.” There was a pause followed by a wet gasping sound in the background. “Wakey, wakey,” cooed Katelyn. “Wow, he did _not_ react well to being clubbed across the head. Wasn’t expecting sweet, innocent Katelyn to pack such a punch, was he?”

Andrew’s breath stuttered. “What did you do to him?”

He was ignored. “You know, I’ve been watching you; following you around. I found your earlier conversation interesting. Something about a true love and a curse? I figured I’d help you out. If he’s already dead you won’t have to worry about your curse killing him.”

Andrew grip tightened so much he almost crushed his phone.

“Someone’s already worked this kid over,” commented Katelyn idly. “Look at all these scars. I wonder if it’ll be harder to make him cry. Oh, well.” Andrew could practically hear a shrug. “I’ve got nothing but time. I’ll be sure to leave his bloody remains where you can find them.”

The line went dead. Andrew stared at his phone uncomprehendingly for several beats before slamming it against the wall, smashing it into pieces.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's prompt is: transformation.
> 
> This chapter contains character injury and references to scars and blood.

“Stop here,” said Aaron. It was his car so he normally insisted on driving but he knew Andrew well enough to know he’d be calmer behind the wheel.

After breaking his phone, Andrew had doubled his efforts in scrying, but this time he’d looked for Drake instead of for Neil. It hadn’t taken him long, his overwhelming anger whiting out everything else and clearing his mind. He caught a brief glimpse of a rundown old shack, heard waves crashing on the shore, and tasted salt in the air, which had given him enough information to identify the old Binghamton place, an abandoned summer cottage on the shore about two miles northeast from Reddin Cottage. He and Aaron had played in it during their summer vacations until their aunts deemed it too rickety and dangerous.

The trail that led down to the shack was out of the way and hard to find and was the only way to access it other than picking their way along the rocky shore. Its general inaccessibility was one of the major reasons that it had been abandoned.

“What’s the plan?” asked Aaron, his voice hushed as Andrew eased the car to a stop far enough from the structure that possessed-Katelyn may not have heard their approach. He gripped Andrew’s arm to prevent him from charging at the place in his desperation to get to Neil.

“Run in there, tackle Katelyn to the ground, and force Drake out of her,” said Andrew. They’d brought along their protection amulets, but they had no idea if they could force Drake out when they weren’t within their ancestral property.

“Don’t hurt her,” hissed Aaron. “She’s disoriented and confused.”

“She’s holding a weapon to Neil right now, so she can stand to get a little bruised,” retorted Andrew.

“It’s not her fault; she can’t control her actions.”

“I’m sure she’d prefer us to stop her.”

“You’re not _beating up my girlfriend_,” snarled Aaron.

“She’s not your girlfriend. And she’s hurting Neil.”

“She’s done nothing wrong!”

“Keep your voice down,” admonished Andrew. “Anyway—” he cut himself off when headlights appeared in his rearview mirror. “Who the fuck…?”

A car pulled up beside them. A familiar, black GT. His car, that he had missed almost as much as the women inside of it.

“Finally,” exhaled Andrew in relief, almost getting tangled in his seatbelt in his haste to exit Aaron’s car. At last the real grownups were here to fix everything.

“Go in the front as a distraction,” said Aunt Abby, without greeting or preamble as she got out of the passenger seat of the GT. She headed directly to the trunk of the car, hopefully for supplies. “We’ll take care of the rest.”

Andrew didn’t ask any questions, already moving to do what his aunt told him to, Aaron falling into step with him immediately. As they were supposed to be a distraction, Andrew took his current feelings out on the door, kicking it in. The rotting wood gave a lot easier than he was expecting, causing him to stumble forward into the room. Aaron grabbed his elbow to steady him and prevent him from face planting.

Katelyn’s body looked up from where she was crouched in front of Neil, who was bound to a chair. Her head lolled at an odd angle and her eyes glowed with the same unearthly blue as Aaron’s had the previous morning.

She sneered at them, the expression twisting her face into something completely unnatural. “Here to spoil my fun, are you?” she said. She had a knife against Neil’s skin, preventing Andrew from rushing forward to take her down. Neil didn’t look too bad, considering what Drake had threatened over the phone. He had a large, purpling bruise on his left temple where the skin had split, causing blood to drip down his face and onto the collar of his shirt. His shirt was sliced open and Drake had reopened a few of his scars, but the cuts were shallow and bleeding sluggishly. He wasn’t wearing his contacts (Andrew didn’t know if he hadn’t been wearing them to begin with or if he’d forced him to remove them) and his eyes were a clear ice blue and staring straight at Andrew. He didn’t look frightened or surprised, nor confused about the fact that Katelyn was clearly not herself.

“As you can see, I softened him up,” said Drake-Katelyn.

“This?” scoffed Neil. “My dead grandma roughs people up better than this, asshole. She’s ashes and bone and she still hits harder than you.”

Drake-Katelyn backhanded him without looking. The knife in her hand scraped along his cheekbone. “I’ll teach you to hold your tongue once I deal with these two.”

“Scarier people than you have tried and failed.” Neil’s tone and demeanour were cocky and didn’t suggest at all that he was currently tied to a chair at knifepoint. Andrew wanted to throttle him for continually goading his attacker.

“I was going to jump into AJ and make him kill both you and his brother, but I don’t think I'll have the time. Maybe I’ll just stick this knife in you and let him watch you bleed out.”

Neil gave a big, false yawn. “Is that the best you can do?”

“Shut up, Neil,” said Andrew harshly. If Drake-Katelyn didn’t stab him than Andrew was going to. How could _this_ possibly be the man Andrew wanted? He should have specified a requirement for common sense in his _amas veritas_ spell.

Neil grinned at him, his teeth bloody. “You’re not the boss of me.”

Just then, several things happened near-simultaneously. The back door of the room was violently blown inward, revealing Aunt Bee holding up a black candle and chanting in Latin, Aunt Abby on her heels with a large bag of what appeared to be salt; Drake-Katelyn turned to hit Neil again; and Andrew lunged forward as soon as her back was turned.

Drake-Katelyn howled in outrage and shoved Andrew off with more strength than Katelyn could possibly possess as she made a beeline at Aunt Bee. She was stopped by a line of salt that Aunt Abby had spilled onto the floor, as if hitting an invisible barrier. Before she could back away, Aunt Abby circled around her, still spilling salt out of the bag. As soon as the circle was complete, the possessed woman was trapped inside.

Aunt Bee completed her chant and flicked a vial of what must have been holy water onto Katelyn. Katelyn was forcibly ejected from the salt circle, crumpling into a heap outside of it. Aaron rushed to her side. Inside the circle, Drake was still trapped. He was transparent, but looked exactly as he had when he’d died. There was a gash across his throat and a deep wound in his chest and a familiar sneer on his face.

“That was a neat trick, but—”

“Begone,” said Aunt Bee sharply, not letting him speak. There was a large gust of air that blew out the candle she was holding and then the salt circle was empty.

There was a beat before Andrew pushed himself to his feet and went to retrieve the knife that had fallen out of Katelyn’s lax hand when she’d been expelled from the circle. She was trembling as she watched Andrew’s approach with wide eyes.

He ignored her, leaving her well-being to Aaron’s capable hands as he returned to Neil to cut through the ropes that bound him. Aunt Abby was close on his heels, her healing kit in her hands. Andrew had the irrational desire to block her access to Neil—all he wanted to do was wrap Neil in his arms and keep him safe from everything—but he definitely didn’t have the right. They were nothing to each other and the last time they’d spoken he’d been purposefully cruel. He forced himself to leave Neil to Aunt Abby’s talented healing abilities.

Aunt Bee was waiting for him; he didn’t stop walking as he approached, simply crashing into her and holding on tight.

“What took you so long?” he asked.

She hugged him back. “Sorry, honey, we got unavoidably held up. We came as soon as we could.”

“I missed you.”

She held him at arm’s length, surveying him shrewdly. “So, you and Aaron killed Drake,” she said.

It wasn’t a question, but Andrew answered her anyway. “Yeah, a couple times.”

Her eyes flicked over to Neil, and then back to Andrew questioningly.

“It’s been a long week,” he sighed.

“My poor boy,” she said. “That’s the only reason I’m willing to forgive you for calling me a useless old hag in your voicemail.”

Andrew slumped a little. “Sorry, Aunt Bee,” he said contritely.

“None of that now,” she said. “We need to get out of here. I think these two are in need of some explanations, and we have to set up a proper banishment. Drake isn’t gone for good quite yet.”

“I knew that seemed too easy,” said Andrew.

“Easy?” echoed Katelyn incredulously. Andrew hadn’t realized that she was in earshot. “You call that easy?!”

“Could have been worse,” said Neil nonchalantly. He walked up to Andrew, rubbing his chafed wrists. Aunt Abby followed him, looking slightly disgruntled, because Neil hadn’t let her fuss over him or heal his injuries to the degree she wanted. “You could have been torn apart when the ghost was forced out. I’ve seen it happen.”

Katelyn looked ill, but she rallied quickly. Andrew was reluctantly impressed with her resilience. “Well,” she said in a no nonsense tone. “Let’s go discuss how to get rid of him for good.” She caught Andrew’s eye and grimaced. “I think I’m starting to believe in magic and curses.”

It wasn’t quite an apology but it was close enough. Andrew nodded his acknowledgement and led the way back to his car.

* * *

“You seem awfully calm about all this,” commented Andrew. He and Neil were sitting out on a picnic table in the back pasture, watching the setting sun slowly sink below the tree tops. Neil had borrowed one of Andrew’s t-shirts to replace his torn shirt and one of Aunt Abby’s sweaters, which he was swimming in. He’d consented to a little more healing once they reached Reddin Cottage but then had given Andrew a significant look. Andrew had dutifully found them a quiet place to talk alone.

“About being kidnapped by a possessed person, or…?”

“All of this,” clarified Andrew. “Witches, magic, ghosts.”

Neil looked at him strangely. “I’ve always known you were a witch. It was literally the first thing anyone told me about you when I moved here. You own a shop called _Minyard’s Magic_.”

“Most people don’t believe magic is real. Kevin works with me and he doesn’t believe in magic.”

“Most people don’t have mothers who are witches,” shrugged Neil.

“Oh,” said Andrew. “So, then, are you…?”

“Nah,” said Neil with forced nonchalance. “My father was a witch hunter, something my mom didn’t find out until after I was born.” He swallowed and stared directly into the setting sun. “He burnt the magic out of me.” He absently touched his sweater above his heart.

Andrew wanted to growl and to track the man down and unleash all his power on him. “He’s dead?” he double-checked.

“Yup,” said Neil, still using a falsely light tone. “He hunted us for awhile but my mom eventually found a spell that tied her life force to his. When he killed her, he ended up killing himself. Then I was alone. Until I came to Palmetto.”

“It’s… I didn’t mean to call you here,” said Andrew. “Or I meant to, but I didn’t think you existed.”

Neil opened and then closed his mouth. “Explain?”

Andrew lit a cigarette and purposefully didn’t look in Neil’s direction. He wasn’t a big smoker, but he and Aunt Bee had a secret shared pack for when they were anxious. They had to keep it hidden from Aunt Abby and Aaron who gave them withering looks and sanctimonious lectures every time they caught either one of them smoking. “If you heard I’m a witch, you’ve probably heard about the Minyard family curse?” he asked. At Neil’s nod, he continued, “I don’t talk about my childhood much, but you’ve probably surmised that it wasn’t the greatest before my aunts took me in. I never had anything of my own and anyone I even slightly liked ended up leaving me before too long. When I learned about the curse, I decided to cast a spell to make sure it would never affect me: _amas veritas_.”

“That’s a true love spell,” said Neil.

“Exactly; I called for someone who wasn’t supposed to exist. He was supposed to have twenty-two names and speak six languages and have eyes that were sometimes blue and sometimes brown.”

“What else?”

“He had to be able to run a mile in under ten minutes.”

Neil gave him an incredulous look.

“We had to do that to pass PE and I was convinced it was impossible,” said Andrew.

Neil snorted and shook his head.

“My mystery man also couldn’t be more than this much taller than me because I didn’t like people looming over me,” continued Andrew, holding his fingers about three inches apart, “and could calculate thirty three times twenty seven without a calculator. I wanted someone to help me with my math homework.”

“Eight hundred and ninety one,” said Neil absently. “Anything else?”

Andrew closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see Neil’s reaction. “He’ll have a shield for protection and an iron heart and he’ll never look at me with only lust and will know he’s safe once he’s found me.”

“That’s why I knew I belonged in Palmetto,” said Neil, his tone full of wonder.

“So that was my spell,” Andrew summed up. “I called you here and now you’re going to die.”

“Eh,” Neil shrugged. “I’ve lived longer than I expected anyway.”

Andrew frowned and glared at him. Neil looked back calmly, his face open and full of something that Andrew didn’t dare name. “Don’t look at me like that,” he said gruffly. “That’s not the proper reaction.”

“How would you prefer I react?” asked Neil reasonably.

“I don’t know; with anger? I just admitted I cast a love spell on you and am going to be responsible for your death. You should be afraid.”

“I’ve never been afraid of you,” said Neil. He touched the pendant around his neck. “Do you know what this is?”

Andrew shook his head.

“On the shield is the emblem of Saint Christopher, the patron saint of travellers.”

Andrew scoffed, because Neil didn’t seem particularly devout.

“It’s also a protection charm that my mother made for me before she died. It protects me against most forms of malicious magic; that’s why Drake couldn’t possess me, although he did try after he got Katelyn to knock me on the head and drag me down to that shack.”

“I couldn’t scry you,” Andrew realized.

“My mother didn’t want me to be found,” Neil told him. “She was a very powerful witch.”

“I still called you here.”

“Which means that spell wasn’t malicious; beneficial magic still works on me. She needed to be able to heal me. Your spell didn’t make me feel this way about you; that’s all down to who you are.”

“You don’t feel anything for me,” said Andrew stubbornly. “After we get rid of Drake, we’re not going to see each other again. The way I pushed you away was shitty and I’m sorry for it, but I wasn’t wrong.”

“Your curse might not even work on me.”

“No,” said Andrew. “I won’t bet your life on it.”

“It’s not your choice to make. I was alone until I got here; I had nothing and no one. Did it never occur to you that I wished for you, too?”

Andrew could only shake his head.

Neil watched him closely, then shrugged. “Okay, Andrew, whatever you say.”

“I said no.”

“And I agreed.”

“Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“Pretending to agree with me; you’re clearly lying.”

“Sure.”

“I said stop.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

Andrew gave Neil a half-hearted shove; Neil shoved back. They were in the middle of a scuffle when Aunt Bee called, “Boys! If you’re finished your conversation, come in and help us banish a ghost, will you?”

* * *

Katelyn was a little pale and shaken, but was sitting attentively on the couch in the living room, a mug of Aunt Bee’s specialty hot chocolate clutched in her hands. There was a strange-smelling pot on the stove; it wasn’t unpleasant exactly, but it was pungent. Andrew’s eyes watered slightly at the vinegar fumes wafting out.

Aunt Abby was busy lamenting the state of the house. “When you were teenagers, I expected to return to a trashed house, but now? All the windows and the kitchen table? Do you know how long that table’s been in our family?”

“Could you really eat off it ever again?” asked Aunt Bee, ever practical.

“No,” replied Aunt Abby despondently. “But still…” she looked around the room sadly.

“Also, I turned your car into a cube,” said Andrew, trying to slip it unobtrusively into the conversation. “Now, how do we get rid of Drake?”

“We can’t do it alone,” said Aunt Bee. “We’ll need at least three circles to generate enough power. The inner one has to be you two, the middle one will be the four of us, and the outer circle must have at least eight people.”

“You don’t have to do this,” Aaron told Katelyn earnestly.

“Don’t be stupid,” she said brusquely. “You think I don’t want to help get rid of him? He was _in my head_. He made me attack Neil. I want him gone.” Her voice shook with emotion, before she forcibly calmed herself. “Who should be in the outer circle?”

“Friends, of course,” said Aunt Abby. “Inner circle is self, middle is family, and outer is friends.”

Andrew and Aaron shared a glace. “Do we have eight friends?” asked Aaron.

Aunt Bee scoffed. “Of course you do,” she said. “Call Nicky; he and Erik will come.”

“Dan and Matt will help, too,” said Neil, taking out his phone. He’d already texted everyone in town to assure them he was okay (Andrew wondered exactly what bullshit story he came up with to excuse his disappearance) and then immediately silenced it when they started asking follow up questions.

“I can call Kevin,” offered Andrew. “Although he won’t believe what’s happening. Renee will come, too.”

“And you can call Allison,” said Katelyn, elbowing Aaron none-too-gently.

“Ugh,” said Aaron. “She’s going to be all smug that magic is real. How many is that? Enough?”

“We need one more,” said Aunt Abby. “I’ll ask David.” It took Andrew far too long to remember that David was Wymack’s first name.

“We’ll need salt, enough to make three large circles, and eight brooms, and to move all the furniture in here out to give us room,” said Aunt Bee. She clapped her hands together once. “What are you waiting for? Get to work.”

* * *

To Andrew’s great surprise, everyone showed up at the house at the appointed time, even given very little information about what was happening. As far as he could tell, all these people had been told was that Andrew and Aaron needed help and they’d all shown up, no questions asked. It was eye-opening for someone who’d always believed that he could rely on no one but his family to care about him.

Kevin arrived with Wymack, clutching a tin in his arms. “I brought cookies,” he said. “Where should I put them?”

Andrew stared at him. “You brought cookies to a ghost banishment?”

“I don’t know how long it takes,” defended Kevin. “And we’ll probably want snacks afterwards.”

“Right you are,” said Dan, coming up the walkway behind him. “I brought devilled eggs.” She was carrying a large plastic holder.

“I have pretzels and cheetos,” chimed in Renee.

“We brought the booze!” called Nicky, climbing out of his car.

“This isn’t a party,” protested Aaron.

“Isn’t it?” asked Allison. “A gathering of people who know each other, snacks, alcohol, and banishing the deal soul of a terrible man. Sounds like a party to me.”

“Let’s get to it,” added Matt.

Andrew looked to his aunts to take control of these ridiculous, rowdy people. Under Aunt Bee’s direction, they moved into the living room, where three large salt circles had been poured on the floor. Andrew and Aaron took their places around the smallest circle, across from each other. Then the middle circle took their places, Neil behind Andrew and Katelyn behind Aaron, with Aunt Bee and Aunt Abby between them. The remaining participants took their places around the outer circle, clutching the brooms that had been provided to them when they arrived.

“It’s fairly straightforward, but that doesn’t mean it is simple,” said Aunt Bee. “Abby and I will summon the ghost here and it will manifest inside the smallest circle. It is of the utmost importance that everyone keeps their place, especially the outer circle. That will keep the ghost confined. Then it is simply a matter of casting the banishment spell—remember that magic is mostly about will, so concentrate on willing the ghost away.”

She had taught Andrew and Aaron the words to the spell earlier—it was an older spell than they were used to, completely in Latin. Andrew felt a prickle of unease when he realized that he would be the centre of attention and everyone would be watching him chant in Latin. Having Drake stick around was marginally worse than his social anxiety, so he resigned himself.

Once double checking that everyone was ready, Aunt Bee and Aunt Abby started the summoning—it involved throwing a ceramic pot containing the strange smelling liquid they’d cooked up earlier into the circle and calling Drake forth.

Andrew heard startled gasps when Drake’s ghostly form appeared in the circle—he imagined for all their seeming acceptance several people here hadn’t _actually_ believed in magic or ghosts. He didn’t let it distract him. He caught Aaron’s eye through Drake and they started the chant simultaneously.

Drake didn’t seem to appreciate their attempt to get rid of him. He roared wordlessly, making all the lights in the room flicker. Then he pushed against the invisible barrier that held him in place with a blast that knocked both Andrew and Aaron to the floor.

Andrew tried to push himself up, intent on keeping Drake contained, but his hand landed on a shard of broken ceramic and he cried out in pain.

Drake loomed over Aaron, transparent face twisted in triumph.

“Don’t you dare,” Andrew grit out, scrambling across the floor to Aaron’s side.

He reached for him with his bloody palm; Aaron reached back, his hand sporting a wound that mirrored Andrew’s. _Protect him_, thought Andrew desperately.

“My blood,” muttered Aaron, squeezing Andrew’s hand. “Your blood.”

“Our blood,” said Andrew. Power surged through his body like it had the morning prior (had that only been yesterday?) lighting him up like a firework. _Protect him_, he urged again and the magic surging through their shared blood answered his call.

A white light blinked into existence over Drake’s head and a face appeared in Andrew’s mind—he’d never seen a picture of her, but he’d know her anywhere: golden-haired Amelia, the last of the Reddins, the very first Minyard witch. She’d been cursed by a vicious and petty man, but now Andrew could feel that ugly curse snap like an elastic band as it came up against the force of his and Aaron’s desire to protect each other.

Drake screamed as the white light enveloped him, burning his spirit to ash.

“Brooms!” called Aunt Bee as he disintegrated. “Sweep that dirt out of here.”

The eight people in the outer circle got to work sweeping the dust and ash and salt out the open door, laughing and joking with each other in mildly-hysterical relief as they did.

Andrew didn’t dare move, staring at Aaron who was staring back, dumbfounded. He spared a moment to hope that his own expression wasn’t quite so dumb. He felt loose and free, like something had unravelled inside of him.

“Did you… did you feel that?” whispered Aaron. “I think it’s broken.”

Aunt Bee and Aunt Abby were both looking similarly awestruck, as if they too were missing a weight from their shoulders.

“How did we…?” asked Andrew.

“I wanted to protect you,” said Aaron. “And the curse was hurting you.”

Andrew nodded. “We’ve always been strongest together.”

The two of them shared one last meaningful look, before turning to the people who were not-so-patiently hovering behind them. Andrew let Neil help him up off the floor and fuss over his wounded hand, all the time feeling as if he was in a dream. Everything out of his direct focus felt hazy and far away and surreal. He gripped Neil’s wrist with his unwounded hand to ground himself.

“It’s… I want…” he frowned and furrowed his brow at his inability to articulate.

“It’s okay,” said Neil, looking at him the same way he had earlier, with that same unnamed emotion. This time Andrew didn’t try to make him stop. “We’ve got all the time in the world.”


	7. One Year Later

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are at the end! I want to thank everyone who commented and kudosed, you guys are the best. And I really want to thank @Leahlisabeth and @apprenticedmagician for organizing Twinyards Appreciation Week. I had so much fun writing this.
> 
> Today's prompt is: Sweet-tooth

#####  _Hunter’s Moon, October 24, 2018_

Andrew decided to close down his shop early on the afternoon of the Hunter’s Moon. They weren’t busy, with foot traffic almost nonexistent due to the cold, driving rain that had been falling since mid-morning. He wanted nothing more than to be wrapped in a blanket in front of a fireplace so it was fortunate that his evening plans included doing exactly that.

He let himself into his aunts’ house, breathing in the warm, spicy scent that instantly spoke to him of home. There was laughter echoing from the kitchen and there was already a fire crackling in the fireplace.

Aunt Bee was wrapping herself in her raincoat and giving the rain a dark look.

“You sure you want to go out and do your super secret witchy things?” asked Andrew.

“It’s Hunter’s Moon,” replied Aunt Bee. “A little rain won’t stop me.”

“When are you going to tell me what you and Aunt Abby actually _do_ at Hunter’s Moon?”

“When you’re older,” teased Aunt Bee, which had always been her response to that question.

“I’m half-convinced that you just head into Columbia and go to a margarita bar with all your witch friends and then spend the next three days sleeping off your hangovers.”

“Maybe we do,” said Aunt Bee enigmatically.

Aunt Abby exited the kitchen, Neil on her heels. He was dressed in a pair of Andrew’s old sweats and Aunt Abby’s sweater that he’d basically co-opted as his own whenever he visited Andrew’s aunts and was carrying two bowls of popcorn, one boring and plain for him and one coated in caramel for Andrew. Aunt Abby brought Andrew a mug of hot chocolate before shrugging into her own raincoat.

“Now, there’s to be no nonsense this year,” she said sternly. “I don’t want to return to a trashed house and a cubed car.”

“Don’t worry,” said Neil, “I’ll keep an eye on him.”

Aunt Abby shot him a level look. “You are trouble wrapped up in skin,” she chided, but she couldn’t help the smile that overtook her face. “You’re likely to exacerbate any problems he may run into.”

Neil shrugged. “We all have our talents.”

“And yours is being a menace,” teased Aunt Bee, kissing Andrew’s cheek in farewell. “Be good boys, we’ll be back in a couple days.”

“Have fun being mysterious,” said Andrew, shutting the door behind his aunts as they left.

Neil set the bowls of popcorn on the coffee table in the centre of the living room and reached for Andrew, who responded to the summons willingly. He kissed Neil hello, in awe of how natural this intimacy felt, even after almost a year of having it. He still woke most mornings almost unable to believe it when he opened his eyes to Neil’s curls and lax face on the pillow next to his.

At first he’d expected that he’d rebel against letting Neil into his space (and they’d certainly had their fair share of arguments and growing pains; it had taken a while for Neil to fully trust Andrew not to hurt him after what he’d said to push him away) but as time went on it felt more and more like Neil was exactly where he belonged. He slotted into Andrew’s life like a missing puzzle piece, like Andrew had just been waiting around for him to appear.

“I’m glad you took off early today,” said Neil. “It’s so cold and miserable, and it’s really coming down out there.”

“How’d you get here, anyway?” asked Andrew. When he’d texted Neil earlier to let him know that he was coming to pick him up, he’d been surprised when Neil had answered that he was already at Reddin Cottage. Ever since Neil’s car had died last spring, they’d been sharing Andrew’s—especially since Neil stayed most nights at Andrew’s apartment anyway. He’d stayed at his own place the night before because he had a day off and Andrew still had to get up early, but Andrew had missed his warm presence in his bed. He was seriously considering asking Neil to officially move in with him.

“I ran,” said Neil. “Not on purpose,” he explained as Andrew turned an unimpressed glare on him. “I went for my morning run, hoping to get through it before the rain picked up, but it started pouring when I was about a mile from here, so I came over early and had a hot shower.” Which also explained why he was wearing Andrew’s sweatpants, not that he minded. He very very much didn’t mind seeing Neil in his clothes.

“You’re going to get a cold and be all gross and snotty,” complained Andrew.

“Your aunts already stuffed me full of ginger and echinacea. I think I’ll be fine.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “They’re witches, you know.”

Andrew pinched his side and then dragged him into another kiss.

“Did you talk to Aaron?” Neil asked with a flushed face when Andrew pulled away.

“Yeah, he and Katelyn will be here for dinner.”

“Wanna put on a movie and make out on the couch?”

Andrew pretended to think about it. “Depends which movie.”

“I was thinking _Poltergeist_,” said Neil with a shit eating grin. “You know, in honour of last Hunter’s Moon. Or maybe _The Shining_? _Paranormal Activity_?”

“No ghost stories,” said Andrew. “I’ve had more than enough ghosts to last a lifetime.”

“_The Exorcist_? No ghosts in that. Or _The Blair Witch Project_.”

“That’s it, we’re watching _Speed_.”

“Not again,” whined Neil. “How about _Hocus Pocus_?”

“_Speed 2_,” threatened Andrew.

They eventually compromised on something, not that they ended up watching a lot of it.

* * *

Aaron and Katelyn arrived for dinner, finding Andrew chopping vegetables and Neil innocently stirring a pot of stew in the kitchen.

“Your shirt is on backwards,” said Aaron flatly, “and inside out. How the hell did you manage that, anyway?”

“I put it on in a hurry,” answered Andrew, “so as to not make you uncomfortable, unlike last summer when I literally caught you with your pants down.”

Aaron blushed to his roots. “You promised never to mention that again,” he hissed.

“He’s your brother, babe,” said Katelyn apologetically. “He’s allowed to hold things over your head forever. That’s basic sibling rules.”

“True,” said Andrew, holding up a hand for her to high five. He thought the most surprising thing that had happened in the last year was how important Katelyn now was to him. She had inarguably become a member of his family as it expanded to include both her and Neil and even Wymack, now that the curse was broken.

Aaron and Katelyn had taken some time to work out their relationship—although understanding of his reasons, Katelyn was still hurt by the way Aaron had treated her. She’d had some trouble accepting magic and curses as real, even with what she’d witnessed. Eventually they worked everything out and were living and working together. Aaron had confided that he was planning on proposing soon.

Katelyn had taken a course in massage therapy over the summer and Aaron had decided to move his naturopathic practice to Palmetto; it had opened just a couple weeks ago, the two of them co-owners. It felt right having them so close. For all that the people of Palmetto still avoided the Minyards, it was where they belonged. And they had more than enough people in their corner, as had been inarguably proven last November.

“I meant to ask, what are you doing for Hallowe’en?” asked Katelyn, stealing a piece of carrot from Andrew’s cutting board and risking her fingers.

“The usual. Flying our brooms off the rooftop,” answered Andrew, with a perfectly straight face.

She bopped him on the back of the head. “I meant at your store, smartass.”

“I usually buy candy to give out but people are afraid of me, so they don’t come in.”

“Oh, no,” said Neil with mock sympathy, “do you have to eat all that candy _yourself_?”

“Shut up, it’s a hardship,” replied Andrew.

“Yeah, Neil, my brother’s life is super difficult,” said Aaron sarcastically.

“I know,” said Neil seriously, nodding his head with too much earnestness to be real. “He deserves an award for powering through.”

“If this is where you refer to yourself as some sort of prize…” warned Andrew. Aaron snorted in agreement.

Still harping back and forth and teasing each other, they finished making dinner and then settled down to eat.

Later, much later, at one hour after midnight, Neil was draped across Andrew and snoring softly in his ear, having passed out near the beginning of their third movie of the evening (they were watching _Star Wars_ following the Machete Order to get through the night—neither Andrew nor Aaron were willing to sleep during the Hunter’s Moon, still watchful after the events of the previous year. They hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Drake following the banishment but they weren’t quite ready to relax fully). Katelyn was curled up like a cat in an armchair which didn’t look very comfortable, although she had somehow managed to fall asleep.

Andrew looked up and caught Aaron’s eyes, remembering what they had been doing at exactly this time last Hunter’s Moon. He couldn’t believe how much had changed since then, while at the same time how many things hadn’t changed at all.

Andrew held up his scarred palm and across the room, Aaron mirrored him. No matter where their lives took them, they would always honour their first promise. _We will never be alone because we will always have each other_.

**Author's Note:**

> I can be found on tumblr [@gluupor](http://gluupor.tumblr.com).


End file.
